Carbon nano-structures and metal nano-structures are finding applications in a number of areas today. These are especially so where conductivity and electrical sensitivity are primary concerns. Carbon nano-petals are opening up use for these graphene based sheets in supercapacitor (also referred to as an ultracapacitor) manufacture and also in high capacity battery applications. One limitation to their use is the cost of the substrate material that is used for the growth of these petals
Conventionally, conductive copper and nickel sheets and carbon cloth are used as a substrate to grow graphene, metalized, or otherwise surface-functionalized nano-petals for applications where a conductive sheet with large surface area is necessary. However, copper and nickel are prohibitively expensive to use as substrate materials and carbon cloth is difficult to manufacture inexpensively. Accordingly, these conventional substrate materials are relatively high in cost, which is prohibitive to the commercial application of these substrates. Since the applications where these conductive materials are used are cost sensitive, a low cost material with higher surface area is needed for use in such applications.